It was another week before I recovered a fair share of my usual strength, and I believe the little surgeon kept me under his charge two or three days longer than was necessary. Meantime the mist still my memory, and though otherwise my wits were as clear as they had ever been, so far as knowledge of anything other than the commonest matters of daily life was concerned I was in a night of ignorance.  
Dr. Cuthbert took care to explain this to the officer of the watch in which I was put, and the was to set me at tasks which required no skill of seamanship. As it chanced, I saw nothing of the midshipman who had impressed me. He was, as I afterwards learned, in another watch.
 
The day I was ordered on deck we sighted a palm-fringed coast, which my fellow of as Yucatan. The word meant nothing to me, for my memory was still in the mist, and the only name left me out of the past was Vera Cruz.
 
From Yucatan the cruised off in an easterly direction toward Cuba. But the second day we fell in with a west-bound , which signalled the Belligerent to patrol the mouths of the Mississippi, on the for a French privateer La Silène, whose master, Jean Laffat or Lafayette, was to have turned pirate.
 
Had I been in full possession of my mental , I must surely have noted the similarity of names. Jean Lafitte was not so far from Jean Laffat, and the Siren from La Belle Silène. As it was, I doubt whether at this time the shouting of Lafitte's name in my ear would have stirred the faintest echo of memory.
 
The following morning, just at the change of the dog watch, the frigate was suddenly roused from its dull, precise routine by the sound of a heavy gun booming down the wind from the . Instantly the ship was brought about, to to windward, and the order was given to clear for action. The call to quarters was sounded, the marines paraded, and the run out ready for firing, all before we sighted the supposed enemy.
 
Meantime the boom of the heavy cannon had come rolling down the wind to us at such regular that the men about me swore there could be only one big gun. Before many minutes we the , barking roar of many carronades. At the same time we sighted the square topsails of a Spanish merchantman, and, a little later, the gaff-topsail of a sloop.
 
Soon the word was shouted down from our lookout at the masthead that the ship was running from the sloop, which carried the big gun and was evidently having far the better of the engagement. The flag of the ship now confirmed the opinion that she was a Spanish merchantman. But the strongest of spyglasses were unable to make clear the small flag of the sloop. It was enough, however, for the British captain, that, upon sighting us, the Spaniard flew a signal for help, and so as to run down to us. That her crew should thus seek to put their ship in the way of certain capture was considered by the men about me clear proof that the sloop was a pirate.
 
As I had been left to pull and haul on deck, I was able to witness all the fierce contest of the fight, and the race of the frigate to rescue the Spaniard. Sail after sail was set, and the sheets tautened as flat as the nimble seamen could draw them.
 
But swiftly as we to windward, and swiftly as the Spaniard down the wind to obtain shelter of us, the unfortunate was already in terrible from the attack of her little enemy. With an which amazed the Britons, the sloop stood on, undaunted by our approach, hanging close upon the quarter of her victim.
 
The fire of the ship was already silenced, while from half a cable's-length the carronades of the sloop their missiles into the rigging of the Spaniard with ever-increasing rapidity, and the great gun on the mid-deck sent shot after shot crashing into the at the waterline.
 
Suddenly we saw the mizzenmast of the Spaniard . It fell forward and sideways, dragging after it the splintered mainmast. As the ship broached-to, we could see that she was settling down by the stern. Even I, despite the night of ignorance which lay upon me, realized that she was beginning to .
 
Certain of the fate of her victim, the sloop now sheered off. The Belligerent opened fire with the long eighteen-pounder bow-chasers, but the shots fell short of the sloop by fifty yards or more. Within half a minute the sloop had the stupendous audacity to fire her great gun at us. By a rare chance, the ball struck the starboard , snapping them like packthread, and on the after deck, to chip a splinter from the mizzenmast and smash a great hole through the roof of the cabin.
 
Only the quickness with which the frigate was brought up into the wind and the main and mizzen sails blanketed by the foresails saved the main and mizzenmasts from being sprung, if not carried overboard. Never, I fancy, did the crew of a man-of-war have to suffer such a maddening checkmate. They dared not even come about to give the sloop a broadside, but could only bark away with the ineffective bow-chasers. The sloop packed on what was a tremendous spread of canvas for so small a craft, and fled away aslant the wind at a speed that the frigate could not have hoped to equal on the same course, even had the rigging been in perfect trim.
 
By the time the British had stoppered the broken shrouds, reeved preventer , and strengthened the splintered mizzenmast, the Spanish ship had drifted down within hailing distance. She now sat very low astern, and such of her people as had not been or helplessly wounded had crowded up into her high-flung bows and were to us for rescue. There was not one of their boats which had escaped the fierce fire of the sloop's carronades. Seeing this, and that pursuit of the sloop was now hopeless, the British captain ordered out all the frigate's boats to take off the imperilled Spaniards.
 
This was a simple matter, as there was little sea running and the wind no more than a fair breeze. Soon the first boatload of Spaniards was brought over from the sinking ship and rowed along our starboard side toward the stern. As the boat passed, I looked down from the lofty deck in the idle curiosity of my empty head. Seated in the stern-sheets I saw a portly man in robes, and beside him a slender woman in the white veil of a . The woman looked up—It was Alisanda!
 
A cry burst from my lips, and I staggered back with a hand to my forehead. In a twinkling everything had come back to me—full consciousness and memory of myself, my life, my love! But in the same instant all memory of my days aboard the Belligerent became a blank.
 
I stared about me in . Then I remembered that my lady was being rowed alongside this strange ship. I glanced over, and saw that the boat had made fast alongside the ship's quarter,—that preparations were under way to lift Alisanda to the deck.
 
Heedless of all else in the strange unknown scene about me, I ran aft, half mad with the mystery and joy of such a meeting. But suddenly a sprang before me with lowered bayonet.
 
"Halt!" he ordered.
 
I stopped short, with the point against my breast.
 
"Let me past—let me past!" I panted. "I must go to my lady! I am Dr. Robinson! I must see her—at once!"
 
"What's this?" demanded an young voice, and the midshipman who had impressed me swung around beside the marine. I recognized him on the instant.
 
"You!" I cried.
 
"The dunce!" he rejoined. "Back before the mast, you damned Yankee!"
 
"You!" I repeated. "Get out of my way. I'm going to my lady!&q............